AfB: Where Are They Now

Where Are They Now

Bleach ended some time ago, and I’m only now writing an article about it. You see, I scoured every atom of the last chapter for the googolplexianth-level secrets Kubo embedded in the last chapter. And I have divined the fates of every character. Behold!

KENPACHI: Through no effort or training, has unleashed a level of kai beyond bankai that only he can achieve called Kenpakai; incidentally, if any other shinigami could ever achieve Kenpakai, his would still be the strongest. Also, the lines on his face have become so chiseled that his head is now a fleshy axe, because his axe-head is stronger than anyone’s.

Yachiru: Now forms the hilt of the axe that constitutes the level of kai above Kenpakai, Gigakenpakai, wherein Kenpachi sprouts no fewer than three particularly nasty-looking axes out of his neck-stump and ALSO wields an axe as big as the universe in one hand and a normal-sized axe with Yachiru as the hilt in the other hand. You can rest assured that his Gigakenpakai is stronger than anyone’s hypothetical Gigakenpakai, and even stronger than any other shinigami’s hypothetical Supergigakenpakai, that’s how strong it is.

Ikkaku: Winner of the All-Soul-Society Raepface Showdown for three years in a row, his next trick is to hone it to perfection so that he can finally scare off the human girl who wants him so bad, unaware that it will only endear him to her even more.

Yumichika: Is using his sword’s power to drain Kenpachi’s strength nonstop so he can enjoy his fights again, but it’ll never really make a dent because Kenpachi is always teh strongste always and everyday.

Kyouraku: As Supreme Commander Chief Captain Man of the Gotei 13, he has made it his policy to suspend the pretense of engaging Hollows in battle, and has instead mobilized the superspiritual army corps to the task of producing a tea that he can pour directly into his brain through his gaping eye-wound for a more visceral kind of refreshment. However, he has yet to summon the energy to rise up from his forty-week-and-counting stupor dozing in the middle of the street to sign the order.

Nanao: On a mission to retrieve the god-sword entrusted to her family now that it’s lost inside one of Gerard’s macroscopic cells (specifically a skin cell on his right gonad, otherwise known as the Right Gonad of the Soul King) as he orbits soul-Alpha Centauri. This is a mission fraught with tension, as any accidental slaying of Gerard with the god-sword could easily make him so huge that Kubo would be forced to give him a personality.

Shinji: Spends every waking moment crossing his fingers for the next big catastrophic threat to the existence of all of reality so that he can show off his bankai.

Hinamori: Has arranged a delicate truce deal whereby Aizen gets to walk free in Soul Society so long as she’s allowed to stab him the exact same way he stabbed her every Thursday.

Soi Fong: After intense training, she has learned to coat her missiles with poison, so now when an enemy is hit by a missile on the same spot twice, they’re as good as done for.

Omaeda: Has become the first man in history to trigger an aneurysm by picking his nose too hard.

Rose: Sells out concerts all over the Rukongai, and has pioneered a Live Aid for the really bad districts where everybody soul-murders everybody. Unfortunately, the Seireitei edition of We Are the World flopped hard when Aizen took too much inspiration from it and hatched a plan to literally become the world before anybody else could.

Kira: Having been introduced to genki pills by Hanatarou, he makes due playing his chest-bars like a xylophone during his squad’s concerts. He’s also taken to holstering his crook-sword on those bars because he thinks it looks very intimidating and cool. The crisis that’s got him depressed at the moment is a home infestation of little malevolent owl-storks.

Byakuya: Shedding a very internal tear after Rukia’s proved she’s all grown up and ascended to the title of captain, he has dedicated most of his time to combing his hair so that he can be the new Hisana whenever he looks in the mirror. He now looks up to Rukia since he’s only died once, while her bankai can make her continuously “dead,” the most envious state to be in.

Renji: Keeps coming up with new names for his bankai. The grand baboon snake’s head is now a Chappy, to please Rukia. Is also still training to be able to take Aizen in a fight, otherwise known as Soul Society’s most hysterical unintentional comedy act. Nothing makes Rukia want to scratch Renji behind the ears quite like watching him try his best at something.

Iba: His struggle for relevance very much mirrors the Gotei 13’s; he has taken to wearing his former captain’s head-bucket, only with shades on the outside, in a bid to be the “mysterious” one. Good luck trying to get him to reveal what his sword does, because not even Kubo knows.

Lisa: Is quietly agitating to destigmatize reading ero-manga during work hours. Hitsugaya isn’t going to fictionally yank Ichigo’s doodle without her help, after all.

Kensei: Is currently paying Aizen regular visits to see if he can’t poke eyeholes into his mask so he can actually see.

Couldn’t be handier for when you want to be fed six wafers at a time, though.

Hisagi: Gets feverish and anxious whenever he sees a bug-head, what with the flashbacks of Tousen.

Mashiro: Still looks like this:

She and Kensei are still trying to train Hisagi to bankai using some tough love, but somehow fracturing and severing his limbs hasn’t really helped.

Hitsugaya: Used his bankai until its time limit ran out once again and now he looks like Strom Thurmond at the end of his life, only with a captain’s robe (fitted with buttons so it can be left unbuttoned), skinny jeans, and a limited-edition ice dragon belt. As for what got him to run out the clock on his bankai again, let’s just say Aizen can thermometers sweat a little when he’s out fucking the sun.

Rangiku: Is giving Halibel tips on how to deal with the back pain she knows all too well while she remains in chains indefinitely.

Mayuri: His bankai has convinced many hardline conservatives all across Soul Society that sometimes, abortion can be okay.

Nemu: Is now a revolting, monstrous caterpillar with the head of a cute little girl. All of her nerves are on the outside, otherwise she might feel a moment’s not-pain, which is unacceptable. Sees nothing wrong with being Mayuri’s human footstool/mode of transportation. It’s very heartwarming.

Rukia: Has upgraded her bankai so that it can now freeze the speed of light (among other abstract concepts in physics), allowing her to relativistically travel back in time during any fight. Thus she is Soul Society’s secret weapon against Tsukishima, who, as of last Monday, is the doting father and birth-mother of everyone in all of history.

Isane: Is now making sure that the medic squad never does any administers any of their healing arts on the battlefield, as their job, modeling their new policy to “come home safe” after the modern American police force.

Tsukishima: Not to be outdone by Aizen, he’s inserted himself into the history of the moon so that all of those craters were caused by a crotch-pounding that would wake the neighbors for sure.

Ginjou: Has opened a ramen shop where, for no reason whatsoever, the menu is a many-layered labyrinth of lies. He also tells customers that he has information about their perhaps-secretly-seedy fathers, which is actually always true since now their fathers are all Tsukishima. Tsukishima played the ultimate prank by making it true, unbeknownst to Ginjou, who’s only vaguely aware that he himself has a father since until recently he assumed that he’d spontaneously generated from a bowl of ramen.

Giriko: Having done nothing during the big war when his HATED FULLBRING would have been massively helpful, he has taken to training so he can protect his new home, the afterlife, for real this time. Going back down to Earth would mean having to live with his wife, you see.

Riruka: Died in a tragic donut accident when a baker accidentally shoved her head in the oven and baked a donut to form around her neck to strangle her. Then the gates of Hell appeared to swallow her into the secret, worst ring reserved for the truly execrable, a torturous realm of pure white and black, the sensation of which is not unlike being tickled by Kubo’s ink brush from above. Hope she likes being forced to eternally find new ways to compliment Hitler’s sole testicle as he blushes in embarrassment.

Asshole Beret: His Silicon Valley startup promising to marry programming with supernatural spirit particles so that users could experience, like, spirituality and stuff, never got off the ground despite setting a Kickstarter goal of $10.50. Is currently trying to claim he invented the internet, when everyone knows Tsukishima did.

Jackie: A vocal activist for allowing boots in mud wrestling contests for reasons she consistently fails to elucidate, she has nonetheless won a seat in the Diet on her single-issue platform, with a very real shot, some say, at securing the coveted position of National Boot Fashionista. All hail!

Shishigawara: Is using Jackpot Knuckle to win massive amounts of cash, raising the question as to why he didn’t before. However, he is even more loyal to Tsukishima now that he is his father. And also his older brother. And also 10 of his cousins. It’s all just evidence that Tsukishima has a soft spot for the lad.

Hachi:  Is taking lessons from Giriko on how best to pose as a servile butler figure. Has also moved to a gigai that’s 100% muscle but somehow also lean.

Love: Unknown. Last anyone saw of him, Sternritter #, The Pound, embedded largish hammers made of snakes made of diamond into his cranium and into each one of his internal organs, but it’s any guess whether he survived.

Hiyori: Is still grumbling about the occasional pains and pangs her sliced-in-half-by-Gin waist scar gives her. She needs to visit Urahara’s shop every month for a cream if she doesn’t want the lower half of her body to randomly pop off at the most embarrassing junctures.

Talk about a botched yearbook photo

To this day, she remains unaware that Gin had simply been worried she thought her ass looked too big.

THERE ARE TOO MANY DAMN CHARACTERS IN THIS SERIES HAHA HOLY SHIT

Grimmjow: Is now the “king” of an unrecognized micronation on an island in the Arctic circle (the flag is a black Hollow hole on a tasteful chartreuse background). His life consists mostly of unleashing his Resurrecion to look badass while swiping Hollow-salmon from the beautiful spring waters, and waiting for new arrancar nakama to come form a new merry band. Yes, it’s all coming together.

Urahara: Why didn’t Aizen abduct Urahara instead of Orihime? Doesn’t make sense. The dude has a bankai that can repair anything AND actually made the damn Hougyoku to begin with. Anyway, he’s currently hiding his dozen remaining Hougyokus inside of Kenpachi, but he is very, very forte and tsuyoi and mightyful so it’s not even making his Ultragigakenpakai a micron smaller.

Yoruichi: Has feline AIDS, but it’s okay because she’s careful.

Tessai: Also has feline AIDS.

Ururu and Jinta: Rotting in a barge out to sea.

Kon: Has joined Nanao on her intergalactic voyage, with the eventually aim of taking over Gerard’s body, and then playing billiards with the solar system.

Don Kan’onji: Now produces a good 60% of the seemingly 5 bajillion “ghost hunter” shows on cable. Oh my god, this room is COLDER THAN THAT OTHER ROOM!! RUUUUNNNN!!!!! For the time being, the thought of using actual ghosts for any of these shows continues to elude him.

Ikumi: Is now Ichigo’s trauma counselor. Her counseling makes use of elbow jabs and haymakers to “release Ichigo’s chakras for spiritual healing.”

Ichigo’s sisters: Ichigo opted for a normal life. Karin and Yuzu are now fighting evil by night as Vasto Lorde-zanpakuto spirit-catfox-Bach’s other half-Bounts. They are vastly overpowered for the low level Hollows that haunt Karakura and end up vaporizing whole neighborhoods, but Soul Society’s economy is now geared towards making replacement Karakuras anyway, and Yuzu and Karin can see the dead so it doesn’t matter.

Isshin: No longer the father of Casa Kurosaki, but still comes to kick Ichigo out of bed in the morning. However, he has to compete with that one Arrancar that Ichigo wanted off his bed for the coveted right to kick Ichigo out of it.

All of Ichigo’s tertiary-character schoolmates: Spend their every waking moment thinking of how best to serve the whims of everyone’s friend, Tsukishima, with whom they are totally equal as there is no power imbalance whatsoever, now mind as he likes to extract his daily monetary tribute from their asscheeks as they prostrate themselves with their rumps in the air. Are taking servility lessons from Hachi.

Squad Zero: Currently set to the task of supplying the Soul King with arms and legs, and lungs with which to speak, and a brain with which to think and perceive. I believe it was Niccolo Machiavelli who wrote in his opus, The Prince, that an effective ruler must make a point of possessing a brain. Ichibei tried to dye the Soul King in black to make him a “black ant” so that he would sprout 8 arms, but in doing so he robbed him of his name, which… wait, never mind. He never had one to begin with!

Pernidas: Has rejoined the Soul King; disappointingly, it was as his head.

Yuki Ryuunosuke: Is now an important character, we swear, only it’s so offscreen it’s off-series. Look forward to his starring spinoff, MOLD REMOVER.

Chad: Now a world-famous pro boxer. This has made the many montages/scenes where he trains his powers even more pointless, unless we assume Chad punches gaping holes into the sides of his opponents’ heads. No rule against it!

The next time they would meet would be in the ring.

Ishida: Now a doctor, he is constantly astonished how his patients’ blood does NOT gush out into big beautiful blood tornadoes upon the slightest papercut. Is not a particularly good doctor but he can just stuff patients into gigais without their knowledge or consent and call it a job well done.

Ryuuken: Despite no longer being Ishida’s father, he still goes out of his way to belittle him but always with a reassuring line thrown in at the end to let the reader know that, deep down, he actually loves him (Like for example, “God, you’re still such a degenerate spawn that’s lower than the sperm that’s still in my nads because the tediousness of your existence froze my balls the moment you were born, and that sperm, which should never have become you because it was a devolution, forever spells out I HATE YOU, URYUU, but I’ll deign to stick around and teach you how to forge some silver soul sperm from your mother’s blood clot so you can be worth something as we’ll be able to destroy the last remnants of Yhwach’s energy with it together”). Is currently attempting to devise a surgery to pluck cash money out of people’s innards.

Orihime and Ichigo: The picture of marital bliss, as Orihime can shield herself and their friends whenever Ichigo randomly explodes with “darkness energy or whatever” during get-togethers. When asked what he does for a living, Ichigo always responds “Living!” with a wink and a nod and a nudge nudge and a “get it?”

Kazui: Is currently having the next twenty years of his life orchestrated to a tee by the actual last Quincies, Bach’s 9,999 great-grandfathers. As all of their conflicting evil designs for the young boy cancel each other out, Kazui would instead lead a life without hardship or strife slicing up tormented souls at age 4 and being raised as the human pet of his father, Tsukishima. No speaking, only purring! There, there. That’s a good little kitty.

Ichika: Has vowed to cut Kazui down at the point of his life he is the happiest.

Next chapter, they bankai!

Thanks for reading, folks. I had a great time entertaining you, and I’m sure Kubo did, too.